


Scenario: Baseball

by dksfwm



Series: Untitled Drabbles and One-Shots [6]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Post-Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 01:04:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14153301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dksfwm/pseuds/dksfwm
Summary: I couldn't stop thinking about how Mulder is going to be able to teach his and Scully's unborn kid how to play baseball. Then this happened.





	Scenario: Baseball

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr. I giggled when I made the character tag for this child and I'm sorry.

He has a ball in her hand before she can even pull herself up to stand. Eight months old and she sits in a butterfly position, grabbing her toes with one hand and squishing the plush baseball between her chubby fingers of the other, launching it toward her father. He coos at her enthusiastically as the ball rolls in his general vicinity; her ear-piercing squeal is softened by the giggles that follow. She crawls to his lap and tugs on his shirt, shoving the ball in his face, only to move it away milliseconds later and hurl it across the living room, cracking up at her own version of the game.

She’s two and she drags her plastic tee and bat behind her, bumpily making her way down from porch and out to the grass. He watches from the top step, amused at the independence and determination this pint-sized girl possess; but any child of Scully’s is bound to be hell-bent. She sets it up a few paces away from the steps and stares at it, tilts her head, confounded. She turns to face him and, very seriously, pleads, “Hit, Daddy?” He chuckles and retrieves a wiffle ball from her chest of outdoor toys and equipment, placing it on the tee in front of them. He moves behind her and grabs the bat, her tiny hands sandwiched between his, relishing in the sound of plastic meeting plastic, her laughter carrying with the breeze.

For Christmas the year she turns five, he gets her her first glove and ball set, telling her if she wants, they’ll sign her up for T-ball in the spring. She brings it with her when they go to Yankees opening day a few months later, sits on Mulder’s shoulders while he stands at the fence as the team takes infield practice. The third-basemen finds her adorable and tosses her a ball, which she catches in her own glove. She’s poised on Mulder’s lap for the remainder of the game, screaming “Let’s go Yankees!” whenever she thinks the stadium is too quiet, Scully hiding behind her Padres cap in disbelief.

They watch the World Series together when she’s nine, even though the Yankees aren’t in it. She’s curled up against his side on the couch, grumbling about how she can’t believe the A’s are the AL team when the Yankees swept them twice this season. Still, she can list the stats for every player during the postseason, wondering if they’ll pick up any of these players when they become free agents at the end of the month, can tell you the last time each of the teams made it to the World Series, too; she’s his walking baseball encyclopedia. He’s just grateful that she still willingly wants to hang out with him, his “old man” status resonating in more ways that just the “father” sense.

She’s twenty-six when they lose him, when he succumbs to cancer. She holds her mother’s hand as they bury him, her brother behind them with a strong hold on each of their shoulders. She pulls out the ball that saw her first home run from her purse, places it next to his gravestone. Her tears water the fresh Earth where they carved his final resting place, rejuvenating the soil and grass at her feet. She strokes his nameplate and whispers her utmost thanks, for being her father, for loving her and her mother and her brother. And finally, for sharing his passion for baseball with her.


End file.
